At age 17, Fauziya Kassindja had a good life--loving parents who flouted village tradition by educating their daughters; two brothers and four older sisters who doted on her; a close-knit community of friends; and, by Togo standards, an upper class existence.

Something very important has been quietly building up in the American economy over the last few decades--something which could have portentous implications for the new century: Workers in very, very serious numbers are beginning to own the firms in which they work.

In 1977, late by her own admission for the hippie back-to-the-land movement, Linda Tatelbaum moved to 72 scrub-wood acres in Maine. a collection of essays that says little about how she stayed and much about why.